Brenna's Latin-n-stuff!

So, first of all, an introduction to my Latin background. I learned in high school from a book called Wheelock’s Latin by Frederic M. Wheelock. I also have a Latin dictionary, and I use the internet as a source sometimes. I have made charts, and other similar things to help me learn Latin better. I saved these, and will post them when helpful.

Now for the aaaactual introduction to Latin. Hokay, so. All romantic languages derive from Latin. This includes English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Now, well, first of all. All languages come from a big umbrella language called Indo-European.

Under that, you have Albanian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Armenian, Germanic, Latin, Greek, and Indo-Iranian.

Albanian became modern Albanian, Balto-Slavic became, well, Baltic and Slavic, Baltic into Lithuanian, Slavic into Russian, Celtic into Gaelic and Welsh, and Armenian into modern Armenian.

Germanic branched into Scandinavian, Dutch, German, and Anglo-Saxon.

English comes from Anglo-Saxon, Greek, and Latin.

Latin branched into French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Greek just turned into modern Greek.

Indo-Iranian branched into Iranian and Indic. Iranian developed into Persian, and Indic developed into the various languages of India.

So like I said earlier, English comes from Anglo-Saxon, Greek, and Latin. For example, mother comes from the Latin māter. You see this in English in words like maternal.

Okay, Latin alphabet and pronunciations! Whoo! These letters that you see in this very post are centuries old, you know. From the earliest printed books of the 15th century and all the way through the finest manuscripts of the 12th and 11th centuries to the Carolingian bookhand of the 9th century as inspired by the Carolingian Renaissance by the monks of St.Martin’s at Tours in France. These monks, you see, developed the small letters from semi-uncials, which lead us to the uncials and the square capitals of the Roman Empire. Today, we distinguish the Roman alphabet from the Greek alphabet, but Romans actually learned to write from a group of people named the Etruscans, who learned to write from the Greeks who were colonized in Naples at the time. This was roughly 8th century B.C. So, this means, that actually, the Roman alphabet is just a form of the Greek alphabet. Buuuut, the Greeks got their alphabet from the Phoenicians, who were in turn, inspired by ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. We owe a lot to antiquity, eh?

The Roman alphabet was a lot like our English alphabet, sans j and w. The letter v originally was both the sound of the vowel u and the consonant w. It was fairly recent when the rounded u came about. The letter k was really rare in Latin. Whenever you do see it, it’s probably in front of an a, and like I said, it’s rare. The letters y and z were not used unless in the context of Greek words.

Pronunciation time, right? Each Latin vowel has two possible ways to pronounce it: long or short. Long vowels are held about twice as long as short vowels. Think of it as half notes versus quarter notes, like in music. Long vowels have a “long mark” or as they are supposed to be called, a macron. These vowels look like ā, ē, ī, ō, ū. A macron is essential to a Latin word. For example, liber is a noun meaning book, while līber is an adjective meaning free. See? Tooooootallly different words.

Here are the pronunciations:

Long: Short:

ā- as in father a- as in Dinah

ē- as in they e- as in pet

ī- as in machine i- as in pin

ō- as in clover o- as in orb

ū- as in rude u- as in put

Now, Latin has this wonderful thing known as a dipthong. A dipthong is a combination of two vowel sounds that are shmooshed together into a single syllable.

ae- as in aisle

au- as in house

ei- as in reign

eu- We don’t really have this in English, and it’s even rare in Latin, so, just be creative and try to imagine an e + u.

oe- as in oil

ui- as in gooey

Now for consonants, whooo! I talked about these a little bit earlier, but here are specific pronunciations for the consonants found in Latin. (Just to make sure we’re clear, consonants are anything not vowels).

bs and bt- pronounced like ps and pt, but b by itself is just like the b in English.

c- always always ALWAYS ALWAYS hard, as in cow or can. Never ever ever ever soft as in city. Ever. Seriously.

g- always ALWAYS HARD. Always, as in get or good. Never soft. I mean it, never ever soft, like in gentleman.

i- yes, I know i is a vowel. In Latin, however, it can also be a consonant. If it’s at the beginning of a word, pronounce it like a y, as in yes.

q- this will always be followed by a u, and pronounced like a kw, as in quick, just like English.

r- the Latin r is trilled, but, I am really incapable of trilling my r, so I don’t. The Romans actually called this letter the “dog letter” because it sounded like a snarling dog to them.

s- always soft, as in, well, soft. Never a z sound as in ease.

t- always hard, no matter what letter it’s next to, whether it be an i or an h, it’s always a hard t as in tin. Never a sh sound as in the English nation.

v- as I said earlier, v is always always the sound of a w, as in wash.

x- always the sound of ks, as in axle. Never kz as in exist, and never a z, as in the ever popular instrument, the xylophone.

ch- always hard. Not like church, like chorus. Think k sound.

ph- just sounds like a p and an h. Think of it as the ph in uphill. It will never make an f sound, as in Phoenix.

th- like I sort of addressed before, this does the same thing as ph. Think of it like hot house, and not thin.

Rule of thumb: Anytime you see a double letter, like, tt or rr, as in currant: cur rant, it is pronounced like, well, two ts, or two rs. Pronounce them separately. rrrrrrrrrr.

Syllablesssss. In Latin, as in English, it has as many syllables as it has vowels or dipthongs. Here are some rules on syllabification:

1. Two contiguous vowels or a vowel and a dipthong are seperated: dea, de-a; deae; de-ae.

2. A single consonant between two vowels goes with the second vowel: amīcus, a-mī-cus.

3. When two or more consonants are between two vowels, usually only the last consonant goes with the second vowel: mittō, mit-tō; servāre, ser-vā-re; cōnsūmptus, cōn-sūmp-tus. However, a stop (p, b, t, d, c, g) + a liquid (l, r) count as a single consonant and go with the following vowel: patrem, pa-trem.

Syllable quantity: A syllable is long by nature if it contains a long vowel or dipthong; a syllable is long by position if it contains a short vowel followed by two or more consonants or by x, which is a double consonant (=ks). Otherwise, a syllable is short; again, the difference is rather like that between a half note and a quarter note, like in music.

Syllables long by nature (here italicized): lau-dō, Rō-ma, a-mī-cus.

Syllables long by position (italicized): ser-vat, sa-pi-en-ti-a, ax-is (=ak-sis).

Examples of all long syllables, whether by nature or position: lau-dā-te, mo-ne-ō, sae-pe, cōn-ser-vā-tis, pu-el-lā-rum.

Even in English, syllables can have this sort of, temporal quality, meaning, some syllables take longer to say than others. Think of the word enough, with its short, clipped first syllable, and the longer second syllable. In English this isn’t something we think about often, but in Latin it’s pretty nifty and important. It helps determine where the accents go! Which I will explain……now.

Soooooo, accents. Just like in English, Latin words are pronounced with extra emphasis on one syllable. Unlike English, however, Latin accents follow strict simple rules:

1. In a word with two syllables the accent will ALWAYS fall on the first syllable: SER-vo, SAE-pe, NI-hil.

2. In a word with three or more syllables:

a. The accent falls on the next to last syllable, but only if that syllable is long: ser-VA-re, cōn-SER-vat, for-TU-na.

or b. The accent falls on the syllable right before that: MO-ne-ō, PA-tri-a, pe-CU-ni-a, VO-lu-cris.

So, that’s the basics of pronunciation of Latin. That will help you get started, so that when you start learning actual vocab, you’ll know wtf you’re doing if you try to say it out loud. Latin HARD.

Brenna's Latin-n-stuff!

Howdy. So, my aim is to amuse myself by teaching some Latin, and maybe some English grammar along the way. This is mainly because I learn things better when I teach them. So, hopefully this will entertain, or help somebody out there!

First Lesson: Verbs; First and Second Conjugations: Present Infinitive, Indicative, and Imperative Active; Translating

An Introduction to Latin